


I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

by lurkinglurkerwholurks



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Angst, Big Brother Dick Grayson, Brotherly Bonding, CPR, Common Cold, Couch Cuddles, Escape, Exhaustion, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fear gas, Fluff, Kidnapping, Lost voice screaming, Movie Night, Sickfic, Vomiting, falling, no proofreading we typo like mne, off the cuff prompt fic, so no judging, suffocation, trying to tag in order of appearance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-06-01 01:11:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15131798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurkinglurkerwholurks/pseuds/lurkinglurkerwholurks
Summary: Deedlee-dee, there they are, a-standing in a row.This is an ongoing collection of Tumblr prompt fics. They are unpolished and off-the-cuff as the prompts come in, so judge them as they are, not as you would like them to be. And feel free to add to them by dropping me a prompt at lurkinglurkerwholurks.tumblr.com.





	1. “Wow, you had to go there didn’t you?” - Dick & Jason

“I’m not dicking around, Dickhead. Get out.” Jason’s snarl would have been more effective if he hadn’t followed it with a loud, echoing retch into the toilet.

“Falling back on name-based insults,” Dick clucked without even a drop of sympathy from where he leaned against the doorframe. “You really are sick. Then again, you were never the most creative child.”

Jason lifted his head and opened his mouth to show Dick just how creative he could be, but a wave of green passed over his tan skin, and he dropped his face into the toilet bowl again.

Dick watched the younger man strain for a few moments more, then sighed a muttered, “Geez.”

He was reasonably sure Jason was unarmed, since his brother was slumped on the bathroom floor in nothing but ratty grey sweatpants, but there was no harm in being careful. So when Dick crouched down behind Jason, he kept his weight carefully balanced on his toes and reached out with his arms only, doing his best to keep his torso arched away from any concealed blades.

“Come on, Jay,” Dick murmured as he placed his palms on Jason’s bare, freckled shoulders. “I’ll put a trashcan by your bed.”

“L’me ‘lone,” Jason wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, making Dick wince. Leave it to Jay to be deliberately gross. 

Dick tore off a strip of toilet paper and thrust it into Jason’s hand before threatening, “If I walk out that door, the next person through it is Alfred. Or Bruce.”

Jason’s shoulders, which had tried to twitch away Dick’s touch and failed, slumped. Dick knew he wasn’t going to get a verbal agreement, but was willing to take what he got.

“I hate you,” Jason muttered, but there was no heat behind his words, and Dick had long ago learned to let Jason’s vitriol bounce off him.

“Yeah, I know.” Dick knew the smile in his voice as he helped a wobbling Jason to his feet would aggravate his brother further, which is why he let it stay. “You hate me, want me dead, blah blah blah. But let’s be honest, Jay. You’re a really pathetic sick person. You need my help.”

Jason tried to yank away, but lost his balance and had to catch himself on the sink. Dick never stopped prattling.

“Not your fault, of course,” Dick agreed amiably. He ducked under Jason’s arm, doing his best not to compare the solid giant of a man leaning against him with the scrawny slip of a boy he had known. His incessant chatter wasn’t just for Jason’s benefit. “Although sometimes when you were a kid, I wondered if you were putting it on just to be a brat.”

He reached up and pressed a finger to Jason’s lips before they could open. “If you try to talk, there’s no telling what’s coming out, so don’t even go there. I’ll take care of you, but I draw the line at mopping up puke.”

Even Jason could see the sense in that, so Dick was left to monologue in peace as he helped Jason cross the short distance from the bathroom to the bed. “Really, I think it’s that you never learned how to do anything by half. Figures that would apply to puking your guts out as well.”

“Shut up,” Jason mumbled as he flopped bonelessly onto the bed and curled into a muted comma. “’m not that bad.”

“Oh? You think?” Dick fetched the promised trash can and set it by the bed, then tossed a shirt at the shivering man before hurrying to the kitchen. He kept his voice raised to carry.

“Remember the time you got a cold and it messed with your balance so bad that you almost fell off a roof? Or the time you threw up so hard that you busted the blood vessels in your eyes and I got to call you Zombie Boy for a week?”

In retrospect, maybe not the best story to bring up, so Dick hurried on. “Or that one time you got the flu and coughed and threw up at the same time so it came out your nose? That was a good one.”

“Wow,” Jason croaked from the bedroom, “you really had to go there, didn’t you? So glad you’re here, Dickie, I feel so much better.”

Dick returned and set a tray on the end table before sitting on the edge of Jason’s bed. He’d managed to pull the shirt on but looked truly miserable, his arms wrapped tightly around his stomach and his face scrunched with discomfort. It made Dick dizzy looking at him, so much older than what Dick remembered, but still so young. Dick pushed the cup of mint tea aside for later and picked up the pill bottle he had known would be in Jason’s supplies.

“I’m just saying you’re not known for an easy convalescence, Jay. Believe me when I say this is more about the biohazard standards of your neighborhood than anything else. Open.”

Dick popped a couple pills into Jason’s open mouth, then held a glass of water to his lips with an order to swallow. “I’m just here to keep Alfred and Bruce off your back, to keep you from getting evicted from going Jackson Pollock on the bathroom floor, and to make sure you don’t choke to death on your own vomit, that’s all.”

“This doesn’t mean we’re cool.” Jason’s mumble was low and soft, like the gravelly purr of a great cat.

Dick’s lips twitched upward as he placed the cold cloth across Jason’s eyes. “I know, Little Wing. I know. As soon as you’re back on your feet, I’m gone.”

He wanted to stay, to climb onto the bed and sit beside Jason with a book the way Bruce used to when Dick was young and sick. But he knew Jason, or at least enough of what Jason had been and suspected remained the same. The innate illness-borne clinginess had been overpowered by a ravenous desire for independence and solitude.

So instead, Dick stood and shut the curtains over Jason’s bed. He made sure Jason knew where the mint tea waited and where the trashcan stood at attention, empty and waiting. Then he risked one quick pat on Jason’s leg, snuck in as the other man trembled on the edge of sleep.

“I’ll be in the living room getting work done,” he murmured, and counted it a blessing when Jay didn’t try to kick at him.

While Jason slept, Dick would rearrange routes and make sure the underbelly of Gotham remained safe, and he would make sure Alfred and Bruce were kept at arm’s length, just as he promised. Given the usual length of the flu making its way around town, Jason would wake up in about ten hours, hollowed out but clearheaded, and would likely chase Dick out at the end of a loaded pistol. But for now, Dick would sit in the silence of the small apartment and be grateful that he could be nearby when he was needed.

After all, that’s what brothers were for.


	2. "CPR with Dick and whomever else you want" - Dick & a character of my choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the Bad Things Happen Bingo: https://lurkinglurkerwholurks.tumblr.com/post/176626266958/tantalum-cobalt-i-discovered-this-thing-that (I am still taking prompts, so send them my way on Tumblr!)

Dick remembered learning CPR. It had been Bruce’s idea, as most hyper-prepared plans were. Dick remembered kneeling on the floor of the Cave, hands stacked on the chest of a practice dummy. He had cracked jokes, simultaneously not taking the exercise seriously but also desperate to ease the panic fluttering in his stomach. He’d only been eleven or twelve, and the thought of having to do this, to literally grasp someone’s life in his hands and blow breath into their lungs, terrified him. So he had goofed off and joked around and done his best to let everything Bruce said flow in one ear and out the other.

Bruce, of course, had noticed and had given Dick a talk on how someday it may really be down to Dick to save someone, and he would need to know how. Someday Bruce might not be nearby to take over for him. Or perhaps it would even be Bruce who needed saving. That had only terrified Dick further, but it had been enough to stop the jokes.

Dick had practiced chest compressions, force jolting up his locked arms as he had thrown his negligible body weight down onto the practice dummy. He had practiced counting through 30 repetitions, then pausing to blow two breaths into the dummy’s mouth, all the while fervently hoping that he would at least get his first kiss before using this knowledge in the field. That particular quirk of timing had seemed awfully important at eleven.

Dick hadn’t thought about that afternoon in ages. It was all he could think about now. He wished he could go back and shake that little brat. But there was no time for anything beyond a brief, violent slash of helpless rage that quickly faded back into desperation.

“Come on,” Dick panted as he kept up his teeth-rattling rhythm. “Come on. Come. _On_.”

No. No talking. He had to save his strength for the work ahead. He had to maintain focus. He wouldn’t talk to a practice dummy. He could keep the pace on a practice dummy.

Sweat trickled down Dick’s forehead and dripped off the end of his nose. If it joined a tear or two, no one would be able to tell, not even Dick himself. Dick’s arms trembled with adrenaline and exertion as he counted.

_Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two._

It had been too long. Too many rotations. Too many silent, still minutes. Where was his backup? Where was his relief?

_Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty._

Dick stopped pumping. He tipped back the chin, plugged the nose, and breathed two short, hard breaths into the lifeless mouth.

He paused. Listened. Felt for a pulse. Nothing.

Dick cried out, exhaustion and anguish ripping the night air in two as he pressed down on the still chest again.

_One. Two. Three. Four._

Beneath his hands, something cracked like a wishbone in a Thanksgiving turkey. Dick didn’t stop, even when a second sickening crack jolted through his palms and up his arms. Those sensations would follow him into his nightmares, and he would bear them gladly if they were the only part of this night that haunted him.

_I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry._

Dick’s focus narrowed, the edges of his vision growing grey and the world narrowing to a pinprick. If he paid attention to who was crumbling beneath his hands, he would stop and never be able to start again. But he wondered, somewhere deep in the back of his mind, if he would ever be able to stop at all, or if he would keep the rhythm for eternity.

That was why he didn’t hear the shouts or the tromp of running feet until another body literally skidded into him and pushed him out of the way.

“MOVE!”

Dick staggered back, catching himself against the oil-soaked asphalt. He blinked, vision slowly clearing as someone grabbed him from behind and helped him sit up.

It was like those Magic Eye puzzles Dick could never get the hang of as a kid, or the visual equivalent of Mad Libs. Alien pieces and parts swam before his eyes—a body, a hunched shoulder, a red box. Someone was talking behind him, their hand on his back. Someone was talking in front of him, growling threats and profanities.

There was a _ZZT_ of electricity. A jolt. A spasm. Then stillness. The cycle repeated. And again. Dick was faintly aware of fingers gripping his shoulder, and of his own hand white-knuckled on a wrist.

Then the body jolted again. It _breathed_. And the swirling Magic Eye, the unintelligible Mad Lib, snapped into clear and severe focus as the shoulder became Jason, and the now-living body became—

“ _Damian_!” Dick cried and threw himself forward. He reached Damian’s side, hands fluttering uncertainly above the AED wires.

After being away, lost in the tunnel vision focus, every detail ricocheted off his senses like hail. Jason, next to him, still panting from his sprint from the Batmobile. Tim, behind him, quiet and tense where he stayed crouched. The smell of ozone and oil baking in the air. The bite of debris into his knees. The exhaustion tremoring through his bones. The blessed rise and fall of Damian’s chest.

Jason had strapped an oxygen mask over Damian’s nose and mouth, the oversized molded plastic swallowing the boy’s small face. Dick’s hands were still hovering, unsure of where to land, when Damian’s eyes fluttered open above the mask.

Dick breathed out his brother’s name like a prayer, hands settling on Damian’s shoulder to hold him still and on his forehead to capture his attention. Damian’s lips moved beneath the mask, the plastic fogging with breath and muffing Dick’s name.

It was his place as Batman to be strong and in control, but Dick had never felt less so in his entire life. He had never lied to Damian before, and he wouldn’t start now. He didn’t hide his trembling hands or his reddened eyes as he bent forward and rested his cowled forehead against Damian’s.

Patrol would be cut short for them tonight. He would take Damian home to rest and recuperate while the others finished for them. Dick would tend to his little brother and likely watch the miraculous rise and fall of his chest long after Damian had fallen asleep. Dick swore he would never take for granted how close they had come to tragedy tonight. And once Damian recovered, Dick was teaching his Robin CPR.


	3. "Flashbacks w/literally any Bat" - Damian & Tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the Bad Things Happen Bingo: https://lurkinglurkerwholurks.tumblr.com/post/176626266958/tantalum-cobalt-i-discovered-this-thing-that (I am still taking prompts, so send them my way on Tumblr!)

The weird thing was that they’d been getting along for once. Well, relatively speaking. For them.

Grayson had told him once that a family like theirs couldn’t afford to hold grudges. On the one hand, Damian supposed he had a point. Their mortality rate wasn’t exactly laudable. On the other hand, Damian’s typical reaction to a “cannot” was to say “Watch me.”

Still, he had tried to keep the peace, which was how Damian's initial proximity to Drake had yet to result in bloodshed. Drake sat on the floor with his back against the couch, his attention on the flashing video game in his hands. His shirt sleeves were haphazardly cuffed and rolled to his elbows and his collar was undone, but rather than make him appear sloppy, the overall effect was of maturity and made Damian feel young and silly by comparison.

That feeling was a problem, but not _the_ problem. _The_ problem was Damian was bored.

Boredom was an unfamiliar sensation. With the League, there was always something to do, and even at the Manor Damian could usually occupy himself by training. But tonight all of his normal avenues of occupation were inaccessible. Father was conducting Justice League business in the Cave with Grayson and the other members, and the area was strictly off-limits to anyone under the age of 18. (Damian thought Western age standards were arbitrary and nonsensical, but no one listened to him.) Cain was away. Even Todd, who could be tolerable at times, was away. Damian’s homework was complete. A storm howled outside and Alfred refused to let Damian leave. (Tyranny, thy name is Pennyworth.) And Drake wouldn’t put down the stupid video game.

So Damian was bored out of his mind. And perhaps he was trying to get a rise out of Drake, just a little. Damian was physically capable of sitting motionless and silent in meditation for hours on end should he choose to. But instead, he found himself lying upside down on the couch with his legs thrown over the back and his head dangling off the front, eyes closed as he tried to echolocate by tongue clicks.

Maybe it was leaning too hard into the bat aesthetic, but Damian thought it might be useful someday.

He had been experimenting for several minutes with different pitches when Drake muttered, “Stop it.”

Damian ignored him. He was having a hard time telling if the faint echoes were the product of a straining imagination or if he genuinely could locate the entertainment center by sound.

“Damian, quit it.”

Damian did not quit it.

“I’m not kidding. It’s annoying. Cut it out.”

Damian kept clicking, forgetting that Drake also knew Morse code. Bored as he was, though, Damian wasn’t wholly miffed when Drake tossed aside his handheld with a growl and lunged at him.

At last! A good old-fashioned grapple! A test of strength and dexterity!

Damian couldn’t completely hide his vicious grin as he flipped over onto the floor. He gave as good as he received from Drake, which was no surprise. Damian’s mother had made sure he was well-versed in many forms of combat, including general hand-to-hand and Greco-Roman wrestling. Drake was more proficient than Damian had expected—his bony elbows were a real terror—but Damian was more than holding his own. At one point, Damian was certain he had Drake dead to rights, but the wily little Gumby (a horrifying program that Damian hoped to never experience again) managed to slither free and pin Damian against a toppled couch cushion.

It was a solid maneuver. Though not substantially larger or heavier than Damian, Drake was able to use what advantage he had to press Damian’s face into the fabric and restrain him. For just a moment, Damian was enveloped in darkness and had enough breath to allow time to rationally plan an escape.  
But only for a moment.

Damian could smell spices and perfume. The itchy, prickly odor of down feathers clawed at his throat. The hand gripping the back of his skull pressed with an inescapable weight. He was too small, too weak, too frightened. He was screaming for his mother and no one was coming. Damian lashed out, not with any cunning or skill, but wildly, brutishly.

When Damian returned to himself, he was crouched on the back of the couch, his sweaty spine pressed to the cool wall, the finger-sized push dagger he kept in his waistband now clenched in his fist. His throat ached and his head spun.

Drake remained on the floor, blood seeping through his fingers.

Damian stared, the only sound in the room his quick, raspy breathing. Then Ibn al Xu'ffasch, blood heir to one of the world’s greatest heroes as well as one of its greatest villains, turned and fled.

Drake caught up to him in the bathroom, where Damian knelt retching into the toilet. Though not as fleet-footed as Grayson or stealthy as Cain, Drake was a protege of the Bat and could travel silently if he wished, which is how Damian knew the shuffling steps across the tile were deliberate. Drake needn’t have feared. The dagger had been abandoned in the hall.

Once Damian finished emptying his stomach into the bowl, he pushed away and slumped against the wall. He half-expected outrage or ridicule from Drake, but none came. Damian closed his eyes and swallowed, then grimaced at the acidic taste of sick lingering in his mouth. But he didn’t move, and neither did Drake.

Only when the panicked heat receded from Damian’s face and neck and his breathing evened did Drake speak.

“What was that?”

Damian’s chest seized, but he jerked his head to the side, combatting the question. A disgrace. It was a disgrace, to lose control in such an emotional manner. As much as the thought put another layer of sour in his mouth, he knew what he must do.

“Apologies,” Damian began stiffly, “for your nose. I—”

“Forget about my nose,” Drake interrupted. “What was that?”

Damian knew he needed to make amends for his action. Though he loathed Grayson’s teachings regarding restitution and restoration, he did understand that his honor was tarnished by his lack of control in the den. If Drake would not accept his apology, penance would be addressed through alternate methods.

Damian licked his lips, then said quietly, “You’ve heard how I was raised in the League.” It wasn’t a question, and Drake didn’t reply. “Given my status, my bloodline, and my authority, it was inevitable that I would become a target to those looking to better their own station or seek revenge upon the al Ghuls.”

Damian pictured himself running from the den, retreating like a coward. He forced himself to open his eyes, to look at Drake and hold his gaze before continuing. He would not hide in the dark behind closed lids.

“A member of the League made an attempt on my life. It wasn’t the first, nor the last, but he came the closest to succeeding. He was supposed to be guarding my quarters. He tried to suffocate me in my sleep."

The white tissue Drake held to his broken nose fluttered as he whispered, “ _Geez_ , Damian.”

Damian shrugged and looked away. “I was young and don’t remember much.” A lie. He remembered enough. Too much. “I thought I had put it behind me, but it appears not.”

He loathed handing Drake an exploitable weakness, but now he could mark his debt fulfilled and burnish some of the tarnish from his honor. Had it been Grayson before him, Damian might have admitted what haunted him most—the lingering uncertainty of whether the man had been directed by his own family to test him. If it had been a test, Damian had failed, as he had failed this night.

Damian expected mockery, perhaps, or even a pitying apology. Drake was not evil, after all, and could be kind when he wished. Damian wanted neither of those things. He did not, however, expect the question he received.

“How old were you?”

Damian cleared his throat. “I don’t recall. Five, perhaps?”

Silence. Long, weighted silence. And then, “Did your family have him executed?”

Damian swallowed hard. He knew how the others—minus Todd and perhaps Cain—felt about killing, even in cases he thought justified. He knew Drake once considered him no more than a depraved hellspawn and perhaps still did. Breaking the other boy’s nose likely hadn’t helped his opinion. But he could not lie.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Damian’s attention snapped to Drake, who stared back unflinchingly. The blood had slowed to a trickle and dried on his upper lip, a bright splash of color beneath shadowed eyes. The answer had come without hesitation, remorse, or qualification.

Tim held Damian’s gaze for a beat longer before letting his expression soften. 

“I better get the ice pack before my nose swells. Then I’m going to kick your scrawny behind in Mortal Kombat,” he said as he pushed himself to his feet.  
Damian stared at the offered hand before realizing Tim was referencing a video game and not declaring a duel to the death. His lips twitched, and he allowed his brother to haul him to his feet.

Tim waited until Damian was steady on his feet before giving him a push toward the sink. “Brush your teeth. You stink.”

“You understand the constant trial of living with you, then.”

“Jerk.”

“Cretin.”


	4. "Lost their voice from screaming" - Jason & Tim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the Bad Things Happen Bingo: https://lurkinglurkerwholurks.tumblr.com/post/176626266958/tantalum-cobalt-i-discovered-this-thing-that (I am still taking prompts, so send them my way on Tumblr!)
> 
> (Please remember this is an off-the-cuff Tumblr fic and therefore wholly unedited.)

Tim did not wake up screaming. This was a first, and the best indication that the worst had passed. He came to silently, grimacing against the light that shone overhead. Everything hurt. He felt like he’d been run over by a truck. No, cut open lengthwise, turned inside out, run over by a truck, then dragged behind the truck for about a mile.

He blinked, trying to orient himself. Someone clucked softly, a soft cloth appearing to wipe the tears that ran down his cheeks. He wasn’t crying. The fluorescent light was so bright and harsh that it hurt, and Tim had to shut his eyes again.

_Batcave._

It helped to have one piece of that puzzle. The subtle scent of linen and aftershave meant it was Alfred who sat by his bedside. The hunch was confirmed a moment later when Alfred spoke.

“Are you with us, my boy?”

Tim nodded, then lifted his hand to wipe his eyes. Or, he tried. His wrists jerked futilely against the padded restraints. He opened one eye, just a crack, and peered down at himself through the dim haze of his eyelashes.

He was reclining on an elevated cot, thick leather cuffs chaining him to the rails. A thin cotton blanket was thrown over his body, but it didn’t come up high enough to fully cover the emblem on his chest. He was still in uniform.

Alfred was sitting next to the cot. The old butler dabbed at Tim’s eyes again, then folded the handkerchief and tucked it back into his breast pocket. Tim didn’t ask him to take off the restraints. There must be a reason for them to be engaged to begin with, and Alfred would need to ascertain that the reason was no longer valid.

Alfred confirmed as much when he spoke again. “A few cognitive questions, and then we’ll put you to rights. Do you where you are?”

Tim nodded, but when he tried to say _the Batcave_ , nothing but a hoarse gasp came out. His throat felt like it had been mulched. Tim doubled over, straining against the cuffs as he coughed. Alfred’s hand rested flat against his spine, rubbing small circles the way he used to when Tim would catch his yearly flu and spend days hacking up phlegm.

A cup touched his lips, and Tim drank, grimacing every time the muscles in his throat contracted. The cool water helped ease some of the pain, though, and soon he was able to lie back against his pillow again.

“Perhaps we should conduct this interview via nonverbal methods, hm?” Alfred suggested. Tim nodded gratefully.

With the restraints, Tim couldn’t use full sign language, but he was able to finger-spell short answers. It was the standard battery—what is your name, do you know where you are, what day is it, are you in any pain, where is the pain, on a scale of one to ten how bad is your pain, etc. He passed, though, he earned a small frown from Alfred when he rated his head a six and his throat an eight.

The only question he couldn’t answer was _Do you remember what happened?_

He remembered... shouting. And fear. And being utterly convinced that he was about to die. But the details were lost, and he wasn’t in a rush to get them back.

As Alfred undid the restraints on Tim’s wrists and ankles, he explained what the others had pieced together. There had been an accident. It beggared belief, but even Gotham must have tragedies born of happenstance and neglect rather than malicious intent. There had been a sheltering group of vagrants. A neglected building. A stash of containers. An unknown, abandoned derivative of fear gas. And a leaky valve.

Tim had been the closest to the scene. He had called in the noise to the team, but had refused to wait for them to arrive. They had been too far away, and he couldn’t bear the screams. He had stayed on the comms, passing along whispered reports of the interior, of the lack of henchmen or overtly nefarious props, of the tiny clutch of people losing their minds in the center of the room.

The gas was clear. Odorless. Tasteless. Noiseless. Tim was lost before he had known what was wrong. They had listened in horror to reports of an ambush, of a full sheath of villains circling, of darkness and rising water, and then Tim’s scream spiraling up and up and up, before the comms had cut out mid-wail.

They had all been too far away. It had taken too long to reach him. By the time Batman, Robin, and the rest of their tiny army converged on the building, Red Hood was already inside.

They hadn’t even known he was in town, much less in the neighborhood. No one was sure how he heard there was trouble—had he been in the neighborhood and heard the screams? had he eavesdropped on the comms again?—or why he would care. But he was there.

When help finally arrived, precious minutes too late, the Batmobile squealing around the corner at an angle that even its Fox-designed suspension struggled to maintain, the door of the building swung slowly in the breeze like a loose tooth. Screams still echoed from the black interior, but there were only three voices now. Tim’s they recognized, a welcome sign he was alive even as the full cavalry charged through the open door, ready to battle all of Arkham.

Instead, Batman, who had been leading the charge, stumbled over the convulsing body of one of the vagrants, mere feet from freedom. Spoiler managed to save the man, in the end, providing the antidote and much-needed oxygen. They would later find the other two men, who had not been so lucky. 

Whereas Crane’s previous concoctions had encouraged hallucinations that provoked long battles, the half-life on the latest experiment was much shorter. Horrific visions triggered the fight-or-flight response, but then quickly degraded into the sole imperative—scream. Scream for your life.

The men screamed themselves to death, suffocating under their own fear. The team would later find their bodies curled into tiny niches among the discarded rubble, faces still contorted into terrifying grimaces.

Tim was deeper in the building, his cries echoing in the empty, cavernous space and clashing with the screams of the dying man at the door and a third. Batman, Robin, and Black Bat had followed the noise, breaths rasping harshly in their rebreathers.

The third voice—the loudest, the most haunted, and the one that raised the hairs on even Alfred’s arms as he listened on the comms—they hadn’t recognized as Jason’s until they turned a corner and saw him with Tim. They had all grown accustomed to Jason’s deeper, more mature rasp of a voice, but they had never heard him scream with it. Even Alfred, remembering the screams from the quiet of the Batcave, described the noise as “like the shrieks of the eternally damned.”

At Tim’s insistence, Alfred queued up the footage from Dick’s cowl. Tim saw himself curled in a fetal position on the floor, the tendons in his neck straining as he howled wildly, voice already fraying at the edges. Over him stood Jason Todd, the same man who just months ago had returned from the dead and tried to kill Tim. Jason’s helmet was off, its shattered viewplate visible in the corner of the screen. His white hair was an electric shock in the gloom of the interior, its messy curl tumbling down into blazing, Pit green eyes over a wide, wailing mouth. Even in his terror, Jason was enraged, fist white-knuckled on the broken table leg he swung at anyone who dared come near.

Tim watched the entire footage, Alfred’s lemon tea cooling unheeded in his mouth. He didn't know what the drug had made Jason see, what it had made himself see in that decrepit building, but he knew what he was seeing now. Jason had protected him. Whether he had known it was Tim to begin with or not, he had gone into the building, been dosed for his trouble, and even in his terror, he had stayed to protect his hated replacement.

They had nearly lost Tim. No amount of reassurances or cooed comfort had been able to break through Jason’s drug-induced state. He had swung at them like a man possessed, his full-throated wailing running the scale from beast-like and full grown to the high, wavering cry of a frightened child. Each iteration made Tim’s skin crawl as he watched, as did watching himself convulse on the ground, his body’s need for air fighting the drug’s command to _scream scream scream._

Black Bat had finally gotten around Jason’s defenses, skulking from the shadows as Batman kept the man’s attention fixed on the perceived greatest threat. She had jabbed Tim first, syringe biting deep into his neck as he gasped on the concrete floor. She had tried for Jason next, catching him even as he whirled to face the new threat. He ran before they could subdue him and bring him back to the Cave for full treatment. The footage ended as Batman knelt next to Tim’s quaking body and called for Spoiler’s aid.

Into the silence of the footage’s end, Alfred murmured, “Miss Cain was able to inject roughly 2.75 of the required 3 cc’s of antidote. Master Todd escaped before she could administer the rest.”

Tim stared at Alfred unblinkingly, willing the butler to finish, to tell him that Jason didn’t need the entire dose, that he would be alright.

Instead, Alfred turned his head away, gaze straying to a backlit glass display case. “The others are out now, trying to find him. We’ve never tried the antidote at less than full strength, and this was a newer derivative from Crane.” Alfred turned his attention back to Tim, looking older than Tim had ever seen before, barring the morning of Bruce’s funeral. “Either he survived, or they will bring him home for burial.”

Tim had wanted to join the search. Alfred wouldn’t let him and had threatened to put Tim back in restraints when Tim insisted. The team returned, without a body but also without answers. Dick had kissed Tim on the forehead then locked himself in Bruce’s den for days. Damian covered his worry by being more of a pain than usual. Stephanie stuck by Tim’s side every chance she could get away from school and her mom. And Cass had stopped in only long enough to check on Tim before leaving again and not returning. Tim waited until the second night before sneaking out. He hadn’t been able to find Hood either, but he spent the night leaving care packages at every safe house and drop spot he knew—lemon teas, honey bottles, cough drops, tubs of Alfred’s broth, a burner phone with only two preprogrammed numbers, and a note: _Thank you._

Two weeks later, Red Hood reappeared on the streets. He didn’t seek out the team. He didn’t speak. Tim wasn’t sure if he could, at least fully. But he was alive. And when his path crossed with Tim’s across a moonlit rooftop, he didn’t snarl or raise his gun. He stood and accepted Tim’s nod of thanks, then disappeared back into the shadows. And, for once, Tim felt comforted, knowing a dark corner might contain an unseen blood red mask.


	5. "Worked themselves to exhaustion" - Dick & Jason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the Bad Things Happen Bingo: https://lurkinglurkerwholurks.tumblr.com/post/176626266958/tantalum-cobalt-i-discovered-this-thing-that (I am still taking prompts, so send them my way on Tumblr!)

Crime Alley was Jason’s home. Not the dingy little alley of Bruce’s nightmares, but the larger, darker pit. Park Row. East Gotham. Crime Alley.

He’d been born there. Raised there. He lived with its grit in his lungs, its grime scuffed into his marrow. He had branded its doors with the soles of his boots and its streets in the splatter of his blood. It was only a fluke that he hadn’t died there. But who knew, maybe he could fix that tonight.

Gotham had plunged into darkness—metaphorical and literal—almost 48 hours ago. It felt like a century. One of the Rogues in Arkham had coordinated a jailbreak by having an accomplice set off an EMP near the asylum and knock out the power grid in the city for good measure. Which Rogue hadn’t mattered, because half a dozen villains had escaped at once and fled into the powerless city.

Jason wasn’t in the habit of thanking the Bat for anything, but he was grateful Wayne Enterprises had had the foresight to quietly fund research into EMP-resistant generators over the last few years. The prototypes were still in testing, but there had been enough on hand to ship out quickly to Arkham and other key locations like local hospitals and prisons. It wasn’t enough to keep people from dying, but it took the edge off the numbers.

The Bat and his birds had fanned out in the city, a dragnet of dominos and spandex, muscle and bone, cast wide to capture the fugitives.

Jason didn’t care about the fugitives. He didn’t care about justice. The clown had stayed caged, and that was the only one he bothered to go for in situations like this.

No, his focus was on Crime Alley. Because while he couldn’t quite convince even himself that Bruce was nothing more than a member of the bourgeoisie, he knew the team’s attention would be spread over the whole of Gotham, from the Diamond District to the waterfront. Crime Alley would receive only a portion of the care, despite receiving the bulk of the damage. And Crime Alley was _his_. His home. His turf. His responsibility.

For nearly two days, Red Hood descended on Crime Alley in full force. There wasn’t a rogue, mafioso, gangbanger, two-bit criminal, or high school truant with a bad attitude who could cause trouble in his turf without finding a red faceplate staring back at them from behind the muzzle of a gun. Not that that stopped them from trying. And not that Hood could stop them without paying a price, large or small, every time.

When he wasn’t literally battering crime into submission, Jason was shoring up the residents. He remembered being young and alone in the dark. He remembered being scared. Being hungry. Being thirsty. Being dirty and tired and desperate. There might always be kids who felt that way, lost in the cracks of the system, and he _hated_ that. But he could save them and their families, just for tonight. He could keep others from joining them.

He'd left his communicator on. Jason didn’t bother to check in except when forced, nor did he reply to calls for backup from the others. They had each other. Crime Alley only had him. But he listened as terse orders slowly changed into dialogues, and then into relieved jokes as the rest of Gotham began to settle. The chatter had ceased to have meaning hours ago, but the noise helped keep him awake.

Now, two days in, Jason was falling apart. He just hadn’t realized it yet.

Case in point: the rational shreds of his brain noted that it was a bad sign that he hadn’t realized Dick had joined the fight. The larger part that was more concerned with Not Getting Stabbed was relieved to have some help.

“You good?” Nightwing shouted over the commotion.

“Been worse!” Hood shouted back. He didn’t have the brain cells to lie right now, and it was true. He’d been dead before.

Nightwing paused to flip over a downed thug. “B’s been trying to reach you. You haven’t been picking up.”

“Been busy!” Hood grunted as he rammed his elbow into a thug’s cheek, dropping the other man like a stone. The move sent a jolt of pain up his arm and into his shoulder. 

“He’s worried. You should’ve called in.”

God, he hoped ‘Wing didn’t expect him to keep up the repartee the entire time. 

Jason turned and got hit with a lucky jab that sent him reeling backward. He had lost his helmet a while back, abandoning it after a well-aimed baseball bat cracked his viewplate. With a growl, he kicked the other man square in the chest, sending him flying, then turned his head and spat on the asphalt.

“You look like crap.”

He _felt_ like crap.

“When was the last time you slept?”

Was this why Bruce had gone with the bird theme originally? Because Dick wouldn’t stop chirping the entire time? It was like having one of those really upbeat cell phone alarms turned into an ice pick and driven directly into his ear.

No, wait. That didn’t make sense. Did it? Whatever, he didn't care.

“Come on, Hood.” The birdie hadn’t stopped chirping, even amid teeth-shattering punches. Dick usually pulled his punches, just a little. He must have wanted the scuffle over as quickly as Jason did. “You’ve done enough. Give it a rest. _Get_ some rest.”

The remaining members of the small mob that had attacked him were fleeing to the roofs to leap across the narrow alleys, turning tail now that one of the Bat’s brood had arrived. It pissed Jason off, so he followed them, hauling himself up the fire escape with a pained grunt.

“At least tell me that blood isn’t all yours!” Nightwing shouted from below.

There was no way Jason could answer that, even if he wanted to. Some of it was. He couldn’t remember where from, exactly, anymore. He figured if he was still on his feet, it couldn’t be too bad.

“Drop dead, D,” Jason called back as he reached for the top rung of the ladder.

Jason pulled himself onto the roof and started after the receding back of the nearest fleeing crook. The world blurred for a moment and shook like his vision had gone from camera rig to handcam, Blair Witch-style. He stumbled, and probably saved his own life in the process. He had missed the goon in his blind spot. Something long and unyielding whistled through the air and caught him flat against the shoulder blades. Jason went down.

“Hood!” Nightwing yelled over Jason’s roar of pain.

Jason caught himself on his forearms against the gritty roof and tried to remember how to breathe. Something like nausea or something like panic hiccuped in the back of his throat. He needed to get up up up, down was dead, down was pain, and he would not die as a broken sack of bones again.

He gagged, once, then heaved himself to his feet, all the while bracing for the next blow. None came.

The other criminals had fled, nothing more than faint smudges against the Gotham skyline, having taken full advantage of the break provided by their brother-in-arms.

Speaking of. Jason swiped an arm across his sweat-soaked face, then spotted Dick across the roof, grappling with the jerk that had caught Jason unawares. Something about the fight struck Jason as wrong, but he couldn’t figure out what. Frowning, Jason started toward the two figures.

He was still yards away when the crook gave Dick a vicious wrench by the shoulders and shoved him over the edge of the roof.

“DICK!” Jason’s boots pounded against the rooftop as he charged forward. The other man was already fleeing, and Jason let him, his attention trained on the spot where Dick had disappeared.

_Drop dead, D._

He hadn’t meant it. He hadn’t _meant it._

Dropping to his knees, Jason slid the rest of the way, ignoring the scrape of broken glass through his pants, and gripped the edge of the roof. He didn’t pause, but something trembled fearfully deep in his chest as he looked over and down.

He expected to see a broken body sprawled across the asphalt like a discarded child’s toy. Blood. Maybe some brains. Another loss burned into his memory and his heart.

Instead, two blue eyes, wide with fright but surprisingly steady, stared back at him. Dick had somehow managed to latch onto the crappy decorative ledge below the roof, the kind that was supposed to add class but only added another place for pigeons to poop on people walking below. And catch falling birds of a different sort, apparently.

Jason breathed something between a curse and a prayer as he reached for his brother. It wasn’t a pretty rescue—no effortless rise upward or swelling, triumphant music. Jason was only just able to haul Dick back over the edge, and the strain of the climb left both men flat on their back, panting and trembling from head to toe. Or maybe it wasn’t entirely the strain.

He’d almost lost his brother.

Jason couldn’t say why this close call was worse than any of the half dozen that came before. Maybe because of the burden of the last two days. Or his ill-fated words. Or knowing that to fall was Dick’s nightmare and therefore the kind of cruel end their family seemed to earn.

Jason turned his head. Dick lay with his eyes closed, chest stuttering in the moonlight as he struggled to quell the panic that still rippled through his system. Even with his own adrenaline pumping and the grit in his eyes, Jason could see the weariness that he had missed before.

Jason hadn’t slept, hadn’t stopped, hadn’t breathed in two days. Had Dick?

“Hey, D?” Jason murmured. His voice was gravelly with exhaustion and dehydration, but at least to his own ears, it sounded more vulnerable than it had in years.

“Yeah, Jay?”

“I think I’m done for tonight.”

It was a stupid comment, hardly worth an eye roll, not at all warranting the breathless, nearly crying laughter Dick dissolved into. Jason didn’t mind. As long as Dick was breathing, he could laugh at anything he wanted to.


	6. "This isn't what I wanted" - Tim & Damian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From a list of dialogue prompts on Tumblr. It got away from me a bit. I am at lurkinglurkerwholurks.tumblr.com.

Damian was caught in a restless sleep when hard bump in the ground beneath him jolted him awake. His limbs tensed, ready to rise. Then Damian froze, remembering where he was.

They were still driving. How long he’d been asleep or where they were now, he couldn’t say. It was a deplorable lax on his part. He should have stayed awake, alert, marking every second, every twist and turn.

“Drake?” he whispered, voice so low that it was nearly lost beneath the rocking roar of the van.

“Quiet!” Damian tensed just before the hand struck the side of his head. He growled in the back of his throat, but didn’t speak again. Beside him, a body slumped against his shoulder, carefully nudging him.

_Drake._ He wasn’t alone after all. The thought loosened the tightening knot in his throat a little, even if it was only Drake. Hardly his first choice.

Drake shifted next to him again, moving almost imperceptibly until what felt like the side of his hand brushed against Damian’s hip.

_o.k._

It was meant as an assurance and a question.

Damian tapped once. _Yes_. He was okay. Groggy, aching, and furious, but okay.

The man in the back with them was talking to the two up front. Damian’s lips pursed, trying to listen but also trying to decode what Drake was tapping out.

_4.h.r.s.s.e._

Four hours south by southeast. The crease in Damian’s forehead deepened as he tried to fast-forward where he thought they had been four hours ago to where they might be now.

“—think it’s far enough, Boss,” the man in the back was saying. His voice wasn’t as clear as before, his face angled away from Damian to speak to the front of the van. “The longer they’re with us, the more likely—”

_—p.s.n.s.e.t.5.h._

Damian had missed whatever Drake had said in the middle, but he caught the end. Sunset in five hours. They’d been in the van the entire day, snatched from their hiking trail before they had made it even a mile from the start.

Father would be looking for them. Everyone would be looking for them, the kidnapped children of America’s favorite billionaire. Everyone knew they were missing by now, but how long had it taken for the alarm to sound? Would they know where to look? How long would it take for the van to be found? And what would happen to him in the meantime?

“They’re awake.” It was the voice of the man in the passenger seat, the boss. He must have looked past his compatriot and seen the way Damian’s mouth twisted. Or perhaps Drake had done something unforgivably stupid. That was likely, too. Not for the first time, Damian wished he could rip the duct tape off his eyes to see what they were truly dealing with.

Drake was tapping faster now, and Damian tried to make himself focus. It was difficult. The malevolence in their captor’s voice made his skin crawl.

_w.e.n.d.2.g–_

“Now’s a good a time as any.” A good time for what? Nothing good, that was for sure.

Drake’s breathing had increased its speed. Damian could feel the other boy’s ribs expanding and contracting against his side, even as his finger continued to tap.

_x.r.n.s.m._

What?

Boots scraped against the bare metal floor of the van as the man in the back moved into a crouch. Damian tensed, not sure what was happening.

_l.v.r.g.e._

There was a soft popping sound as the man cracked a joint. A neck? A shoulder?

_b.n.o.v.t.e._

B-N-O... Oh. _Oh._ The BNO vote. The one Father was pushing against, the whole reason they had come to the West Coast in the first place. No ransom. Leverage. They were here as leverage, not for ransom money. And why keep two levers to move the obstacle when one would do just fine?

Damian put the pieces together a second before the boots stopped in front of them. He began wriggling, trying to stab his duct tape bonds against the ripped plastic buffer he’d found before being lulled to sleep. Next to him, Drake was squirming as well. Damian pounded his bound hands against the side of the van, wincing as the plastic stabbed the soft flesh beneath his pinky. He would not be murdered in the desert by some two-bit corporate stooge. He would n—

Damian nearly fell over as Drake’s slender frame disappeared from his side. _No!_

There were cries, Drake’s and the man’s, and the heavy thuds of bodies striking bodies and feet striking metal. Beneath him, Damian could feel the van slow, then accelerate. He finally managed to jab the sharp plastic through the duct tape, then wrenched his torso upward, trying to widen the tear. He was moving as quickly as he could—shoulders straining, tape burst, arms around, tape off, hands to face, feet on floor, body in air—but he felt like he was wading through quicksand.

Damian cried out as he ripped the duct tape off his eyes, taking most of his eyelashes and some of his brows with it. Long strips still clung to the sides of his head, but he was already diving forward, not toward Drake, but toward the front of the van.

The two men up front shouted in alarm as Damian appeared between them, hands stretched toward the steering wheel. After hours of darkness, the sun outside was so bright that tears streamed from his eyes, blinding him. Still, he could see enough.

Behind him, the roar of the road grew louder as their captor wrenched the door open, rusted metal screeching in the track. The men up front were trying to grab him, contain him, push him back, push him down. Damian clung to the wheel with all his might.

“DRAKE! BRACE!” he screamed, pausing only a moment before giving the steering wheel a hard wrench to the left.

The world became a smear of gold, and then went white.

* * *

Damian awoke on his back, the smell of smoke in the air. He opened his eyes. The clear desert sky looked down on him. To his right, a scrubby brush peered over him. To his left, a dark plume sluggishly crawled into the sky to fill the void.

_Drake_ Had he been able to brace himself before Damian drove the van off the road? If Damian was on the ground, either Drake had pulled him out, or Damian had been thrown. No silhouette shaded his face from above. Drake was not at his side.

Damian stayed where he was, gingerly testing his various body parts to see where the worst damage was. He hurt all over, but everything seemed to be at least somewhat functional, except for his arm. Trying to move it even a little sent a nauseating wave of pain crashing over him. Broken in at least one place, probably more. But there didn’t seem to be any internal bleeding, as far as he could tell.

With a groan, Damian sat up, careful to cradle his broken arm. Sniffling, he turned his face and wiped his tears on his shoulder, then looked around. The van lay on its side, maybe four yards away. It belched out thick, pungent black smoke, but nothing moved inside. He could see legs lying at the front, the body hidden by the cab. The feet were clad. Not Drake. The kidnappers had taken their hiking shoes.

Despite himself, Damian uttered another low groan as he staggered to his feet. The sun-baked earth was scorchingly hot, even through his socks, but Damian forced the pain aside, pushing it beneath the searing agony in his arm, the pounding in his head, the throbbing in his bloodied knee.

He turned, then spotted the body lying still in the road.

“Drake!” Damian cried, and hobbled as fast as he could in his brother’s direction. There was blood in Drake’s hair, bright and sticky against his pale skin. But he was breathing, and when Damian gripped his shoulder and squeezed, Drake moaned.

It took many anxious moments for Drake to come fully around, at which he promptly turned his head and threw up digested pieces of their long-ago breakfast. It took even longer after that to get him to sit up after Damian carefully cut through the tape around his wrists and face. Drake had been thrown from the van, Damian learned, and had struck his head. The hit had knocked him out and blown his pupils wide, making it impossible for Drake to keep his eyes open in the harsh desert sun. Thankfully, other than a few damaged ribs—broken, they both suspected—there were no other major injuries.

Damian managed to guide Drake through ripping a strip off the hem of his shirt. Drake pulled the now filthy bandana from his neck—the one Damian had ruthlessly teased him about only that morning—and pressed it mincingly to his head wound. Then he used the strip to hold the bandana in place before tying the cloth across his eyes.

“I can’t see anyways,” Drake reasoned. His voice was rough, caught somewhere in the back of his throat. “Might as well prevent any damage now and try to take it off once it’s dark.”

At least, that was approximately what he said, minus some slurring. Damian didn’t dare consider exactly how hard Drake had hit his head. There was nothing he could do about it now.

“Now what?” Damian asked. He looked around them and spotted nothing but scrub and dirt in all directions. “There’s nothing here. We could stay with the van…”

“Mm-mm.” Drake was careful not to shake his head. “Are they dead?”

Damian was silent, too ashamed to admit that he hadn’t checked. Hadn’t even thought to check.

“Check, but be careful.” Ordinarily, Damian would have been enraged by the order. Now there was only time to bristle before he crept toward the van, hissing softly every time his feet touched the scorching earth.

One man was dead. Two still had pulses fluttering in their necks. If he had been the old Damian, Damian al Ghul instead of Damian Wayne, that wouldn’t have been a problem for long. If there had been a knife or a pair of scissors, Damian would have made Drake cut the seat belts and bind the men. The van was a landmark in a mirror-flat landscape. It would lead rescue to them as well as any flare. But they had no way to restrain the men, so they didn’t dare stay.

Fumbling clumsily with his good hand, Damian located the man with the smallest feet and stole his shoes. He put them on, feet sloshing inside and laces flapping against the ground as he went to the next man and stole his shoes as well.

They were too loud, though there was no one to hear. Caught in the sun like a bug under a magnifying glass, slowly crisping to death, Damian whispered instructions to guide Drake’s blind hands, hushed profanities peppering their clumsy movements. Their hands fumbled at shoelaces, tying shoes and using the pair from the third man to splint Damian’s arm, emptied and buried guns, and finally grasped each other as they began the long walk to salvation.

As they left, Damian didn’t mention the still-smoking van. Drake didn’t suggest that they move the men away. Even the righteousness of a Bat could only carry you so far.

“If you see shelter of any kind, get to it,” Drake said as they hobbled along together. “An overhang. A cave. An alcove. Anything.”

He leaned against Damian, an arm slung over Damian’s good shoulder, spine twisted to keep as much of his weight off as possible. They made a pitiful sight, or would if there were anyone to see. Damian’s leg had gone stiff, forcing him to walk with a gait reminiscent of a peg-legged man from an old pirate movie. Even if his shoulder had been able to bear Drake more fully, his leg would not. But he bore as much as he could, struggling to keep a drunkenly weaving Drake upright.

Damian’s shirt was dark with sweat. He could see Drake’s throat bobbing painfully every time he swallowed. Drake was right. They needed to get out of the sun.

He wished Grayson were here. Or Father. Or anyone else at all. Damian had been thoroughly trained in various survival scenarios, but in those scenarios, he had always been alone. Having Drake along, with his addled head and unseeing eyes, changed the equation, and not in their favor. As much as Damian usually enjoyed being the one in charge, he now wished anyone else were here to make the decisions. He didn’t want the outcome to be his fault.

Had Damian been anyone else, he might have cried when he first saw the mounds. As it was, he was too dehydrated.

“Drake,” he croaked. “There are rock formations ahead.”

“Shade?” The word was a hiss, a snake’s belly on stone, and smelled of old vomit.

“Maybe.” The clumps of rock weren’t big enough to be mountains, or even hills. They were just… rocks, tumbled into the middle of the desert like a god’s forgotten toys. All they needed was an outcropping or a shallow indentation. Just something to hide from the heat.

The rocks ended up being much larger—and much further away—than Damian had realized. He tried to fill his thoughts by fantasizing about Father’s reaction. The fear, the rage, the immense power of wealth and privilege brought to fore by an iron will. Grayson, back in Gotham, would be too far away to help, but he would reward Damian’s return to Gotham with one of his best hugs, the warm, almost crushing kind like he was trying to push Damian directly into his heart. It was encouraging to imagine—all this, and what Father would do to the men once he found them. But as the day wore on and the sun beat down, Damian would jerk more and more from a mind humming with empty static.

At least Drake seemed to be holding himself together. He fell twice, tripping once over a divot in the road Damian had missed and once for no reason Damian could see. Each time, Drake took a cluster of hard breaths to collect himself, then staggered to his feet and draped his arm across Damian’s shoulders before continuing on. Neither had the will to summon even a frivolous argument.

At last, they reached the rock formations. The packed earth beneath their feet had withdrawn, revealing swirls of reddish rock that rushed ahead and climbed into hunks dozens of feet in the air. Damian squinted, seeking a crevice that would be big enough for the both of them. Or, he admitted to himself, at least large enough for Drake. The other boy hadn’t spoken in miles, and his breathing had grown audibly ragged, whistling between bone-dry lips.

“There!” Damian’s voice cracked and broke. He didn’t care. His full attention was on turning them both toward the dark patch to their left. He couldn’t tell how big or deep the hole was, but it was darker than the others they had passed, which he hoped meant it was deep enough, and it looked wide enough to wiggle into.

The opening rose to just above knee height. Damian helped Drake lower himself to the ground, both grimacing as the ground seared their skin even through their clothes.

“Stay here,” Damian ordered as he released Drake and scooted toward the hole.

Grunting, Damian lowered himself to his stomach and looked in. Nothing looked back, at least that he could see. Casting about, he wrapped his hand on a fist-sized chunk of rock, then crawled into the crevice. It was blissfully cool inside. Damian stopped moving for half a breath and pressed his cheek to the bare rock. Then he lifted his head and looked around.

The little hole ended up widening further in, spreading into a space just large enough for the two of them. Miraculously, no feral beasts waited to defend their den, just a small snake that Damian killed remorsefully with the rock. They needed this hole, and he would not apologize for it, but he wished he could have saved the creature.

Once Damian was sure the bolt hole would do, he crawled back out and guided Drake inside. They sat slumped next to each other, curled shoulder to shoulder, heads ducked to avoid the low, jagged ceiling, backs pressed to the cool stone. Shelter didn’t mean safety. It didn’t mean rescue. But it was a stepping stone, like a save point in one of Drake’s video games, a point of progress that they could cling to until help arrived.

“I told you I didn’t want to go hiking.” It had been so long since Drake had spoken that the unexpected noise made Damian’s arms break out in goosebumps. He sounded awful, worse than even Damian felt, and it took a moment for Damian’s mind to focus on the words rather than the voice.

Damian snorted. “This isn’t what I wanted either. It’s not my fault Father won’t let me go places alone. I’m more than capable.”

“Hikes are of the devil,” Drake croaked mournfully. “This proves it.”

“I would have been better off without you,” Damian pointed out. “They only took you because you were with me.”

“And because I saw their faces. The leader. I saw him before they bagged our heads.”

Damian hadn’t known that. It had all happened too fast. One second, he’d been on the trail, griping at Drake to hurry up, and in the next, they’d been restrained, thrown over shoulders, and spirited away.

“Father is going to be upset.” That was a bad thing, Damian knew, but the idea made him feel warm inside.

Drake snorted. “Forget going hiking by yourself. Bruce is going to handcuff you to Dick until you’re twenty-five.”

“And you,” Damian added, with a small twist of his lips. He didn’t want Drake to think he would be the only one suffering after this. “Hopefully not to Grayson, though. Maybe Cain.”

“You think? Even though I’m not the heir?” Drake’s tone was teasing, as was the nudge he gave Damian’s shoulder, but Damian felt his stomach twist guiltily.

“Father has always had a soft spot for strays,” Damian said with a sniff. “Obviously, no one is as important as I am, but you… he… that is…”

“Hey Dames?” Drake’s voice was hushed, a breathy whisper punctuated by a harsh cough, but it cut cleanly through Damian’s fumbling. “You know we’re not going to die, right?”

The question was so unexpected that Damian choked down a laugh. “What? Of course we’re not—“

“I don’t hate you.” Damian went still as the quiet words unfurled in the dark. “Maybe sometimes you think I do, but I don’t. Even when I hate the things you say or do, I don’t… It doesn’t matter what you think I am or where I fit. You’re my brother. And I’m not saying that because I think we’re going to die.”

Drake slumped down against the wall with a pained sigh, so weary that Damian could almost feel the exhaustion radiating from his thin shoulders. “I _will_ kill you if you repeat any of that to anyone, though.”

Damian coughed out a bark of a laugh and knocked his forehead against Drake’s shoulder before leaning against his brother. “I still find you embarrassing.”

“I know.” Drake’s lips quirked as he rested his cheek against the top of Damian’s head. “I know.”

The sun set, stabbing into their hideaway with golden lances of blinding rays before disappearing beyond the horizon. The temperature dipped, at first bringing relief, then plummeting. They shivered together, each tremble making the pain in Damian’s arm spike. Drake’s head began to droop, and Damian talked to keep him awake. He would not be found huddled next to a corpse.

_You know we’re not going to die, right?_ Of course not. They were survivors, even Drake. They wouldn’t die. Damian wouldn’t let them.

They talked about what they would do once they were found. Not rescued, because they had rescued themselves, but found. Drake admitted to thinking wistfully of painkillers, coke floats, and a shower. Damian spoke of justice, of vengeance, clattering together the drivers’ licenses in his pocket that he had stolen from the unconscious men. Neither spoke of the moment Father would gather them into his arms and hold them tight, but Damian knew they were both thinking of it.

Help didn’t come until long after the moon had risen and started its slow descent. Both had lost their fight against sleep and were jerked awake from a doze as headlights flashed across the opening of their bolt hole. Damian’s hand tightened on Drake’s arm. They had left two men alive. If their kidnappers had a team, someone they could call or radio, someone who could trawl the desert in the dead of night…

Then a voice split the air. “Damian! Tim!”

“Father!” Damian cried as he hurtled himself toward the opening. His whole body was stiff from cold and inactivity, his arm and knee screaming as he dragged himself on his stomach through the hole into the night air. “Father!”

Then broad, calloused hands were there, hooking under his arms and pulling him from the hole. “My arm, my arm,” Damian gasped as spots danced across his vision. The hands shifted, one bracing him as the other pressed flat against his back, drawing him into the enveloping hug he’d spent hours envisioning.

“I’ve got you. You’re safe. I’ve got you.” Lips pressed into his hair, an exhaled breath warming his scalp. Damian closed his eyes and leaned into his father’s broad chest, then pulled back to twist toward the hole. “Drake.”

Others were already there, men in uniform and in dark suits, pulling a still-blindfolded Drake from the hole. “Concussion,” Damian explained over the commotion. “It was too bright.”

Drake was already stumbling forward, following Damian’s voice. Father caught him in one arm, pulling Drake close into his suit jacket and pressing a kiss into his dirty hair. Damian watched, for once not twisted by the acid bite of jealousy. Then Father extended his other arm his way, and Damian threw himself into the hug.

“I knew you’d be okay,” Father murmured as he pulled them both close. “I knew you’d watch out for each other, no matter what.”

Damian thought again of the men ripping Drake from his side and dragging him to the open van door and shuddered. “Did you get them?” he asked, the question muffled by Father’s lapels.

“Yes. All of them. From the top on down.” Father’s voice dipped low, rumbling deep in his chest in a Bat-like growl.

“Good. Damian took their licenses, just in case,” Drake offered, making Father huff a laugh.

The officers around them were still milling anxiously, and Damian could feel his legs trembling. “Father? Can we go home now?”

Another laugh from Father, this one deep and low, filling Damian with warmth from his toes to his head. “To the hospital for some x-rays, but then yes, home.”

Still in their father’s embrace, Drake’s fingers found Damian’s wrist and tapped.

_o.k._

_Yes._


	7. Jason + 🤧

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the emoji prompt meme. Includes an oblique reference to "Safe House."

“You should go to bed.”

“What are you, my nanny?” Jason snapped back. The vitriol of his response was blunted by the sneeze that came immediately after, snapping his head forward. He groaned and rested his forehead on his stack of books.

“Come on, Jay,” Dick tried again. “I know sick days aren’t really your thing—”

“Is it anyone’s thing in this stupid family?” Jason grumbled.

“—but you won’t get better if you won’t rest.”

Dick had circled past the den multiple times that afternoon, monitoring his little brother’s progress. Or not-so-little, Dick had to admit. There were still times that the sheer size of Jason—once a scrawny, underfed street rat, now a hulking behemoth of a brawler—startled Dick. Not all the time, just every now and then, when they had some peace and his mind forgot the last few years. Forgot the Pit. Forgot Ethiopia. Forgot that maybe the before hadn’t been so idyllic, and instead tried to make the contentment of now overwrite the stress and dysfunction of then.

Some things hadn’t changed, though. Jason’s aversion to company when he was sick, for one. Dick craved comfort when ill. He wanted to be coddled. He wanted medicine and mounds of blankets and a cool, dry hand pressed tenderly to his forehead. Jason just wanted to be left alone. He would retreat and disappear like a wounded animal and only reappear days later when he felt well enough again to hide his symptoms.

Whatever bug Jason had picked up had hit him fast and hard. He’d started work in the den earlier that morning, sniffling somewhat but otherwise content to wait while the results for his case ran downstairs. Now, hours later, he was a quivering mass of body chills, cold sweat, flushed cheeks, and copious amounts of snot. A _stubborn_ , quivering mass.

Well, Dick could be stubborn, too.

“Whatever you’re working on can wait.” Dick took advantage of Jason’s inattention while blowing his nose and lunged forward, swiping his books up into his arms.

“Hey!” Jason blinked up with watery eyes, trying to glare Dick into submission. It wasn’t his most fearsome look.

Dick ignored him in favor of flipping through the books. He’d expected some weighty fantasy tome or Victorian novel, the kind Jason always seemed to love and Dick didn’t have the patience for. Instead, he found himself looking at an ugly, pea-green book titled _Culture and Anarchy_ and filled with tiny type that made his vision swim.

“What in the world?” Dick muttered. He looked up and was startled to find Jason flushing more than could be accounted for by his illness.

“It’s for my class,” Jason mumbled. At Dick’s blank look, he lifted an eyebrow. “The brat didn’t tell you?”

_Brat_ usually meant Damian, coming from Jason. Damian was keeping secrets about Jason? From Dick? When even would they have been together to _share_ a secret?

At Dick’s curt shake of the head, Jason shrugged, then blew his nose again. “I, uh, I’m taking a couple night classes.” He said it casually, but he wouldn’t look Dick in the eye, and he’d shifted in his chair, leaning away slightly.

Dick considered taking advantage of Jason’s illness to dig for more information. The idea of Jason continuing his education—of doing _anything_ to expand his life outside of the hood—surprised Dick, and he was angry at himself for feeling surprised. He knew Jason was smart, maybe smarter than all of them, but he forgot. As penance, as a kindness, as a good big brother, Dick decided to waive his own curiosity for now. He needed to get Jason to bed.

“Good for you. Now come on.” Dick tucked the book under his arm, then bent and slid an arm around Jason’s torso. “On your feet.”

“I _can’t_.” Jason was coming dangerously close to a whine, his deep, gravely voice inching upward as he tried to free himself from Dick’s grip.

“You can.” Even sick, Jason was capable of freeing himself. That he gave up after minimal effort spoke volumes. Dick hefted Jason’s arm across his shoulder with a grunt. “You’re going to lie down, and I’ll read to you until you fall asleep. It’s a win-win. Don’t breathe on me.”

The last was said as Jason heaved a heavy sigh and earned Dick another watery-eyed glare. Dick only smiled and kept that smile all the way up the stairs to the nearest empty guest room.

The next few minutes were ones of hushed preparation. Jason crawled under the covers, fully clothed, with a soft groan while Dick fetched water, tissues, a trashcan, and a chair. Once everything was set up, he pulled the chair close to the bed, placed the tissues within reach, and opened the ugly green book.

Jason was asleep within a page.

Dick shut the book and placed it on the bedside table next to the bell that would summon help if Jason needed it.

“Goodnight, baby brother,” Dick murmured, pressing a kiss to Jason’s forehead. It was good to have him home.


	8. Duke + ✨

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the emoji prompt meme, and my first Duke Thomas fic ever!!
> 
> Originally posted here: https://lurkinglurkerwholurks.tumblr.com/post/181154509637/duke-thomas

Stephanie took one look at the new kid and burst out laughing.

“Yuk it up,” Duke grumbled as he sat down heavily on the ledge next to her. His canary yellow costume gleamed in the moonlight, but not as much as—

“Dude,” Stephanie gasped out between giggles. “You look like a disco ball took a puke on you. You look like a walking bath bomb cloud. You look—”

“Alright, alright,” Duke cut her off, but not meanly. The words were grumpy, but the tone was wry. She liked that about Duke. He made her a little nervous, only because she didn’t have him completely figured out yet, but he seemed like a chill guy.

She opened her mouth to ask what had happened when he sighed, deep and long. He tipped his head all the way back and slowly rolled his neck to pop out all the kinks.

“This family is exhausting sometimes.”

Stephanie perked up. It’d been months since Duke had first joined the family, and one thing she’d noticed was that he wasn’t much of a complainer. Or a talker in general, for that matter. He was more of the observant type, though she wasn’t sure if the lack of complaining specifically was because he wasn’t a complainer by nature, if he kept it all bottled, or if he was still riding the feeling that all the sidekicks felt in the beginning, the awe that you had been chosen and the fear that one wrong word would take it all away.

“Oh?” she ventured, when nothing more was forthcoming.

“No one talks.” 

_No duh_ , Stephanie wanted to say but Duke was still going. 

“Like, they’re not chatty, and I didn’t really expect them to be, I guess, but the house is so _loud_. Like, there’s always someone yelling or slamming doors or trying to stab somebody else. And I thought my neighborhood kept me on my toes. Sometimes a guy wants to take a leak without having to check behind the shower curtains, you know?”

Duke frowned over the cityscape, and, to Stephanie’s delight, she realized the expression made his nose wrinkle. She pressed her lips together tightly, too afraid to speak or even move too much in case he stopped talking. This was the most words she’d heard him string together… maybe ever.

“And they’re all just _weird_. I don’t even think they know how weird they are.“

He looked at her then, so Stephanie dared to press her hand to her chest in mock shock. “You mean dressing up like animals to punch other loonies in costume isn’t normal?”

Duke rolled his eyes appreciatively. “Did you know B gives me an allowance? That’s cool, I guess. I mean, it’s nice to be able to pay for stuff myself. But do you know how much he gives me?”

“Don’t,” Stephanie warned. “It’ll probably make me mad.”

“I guess I don’t get why I’m here,” Duke mused. He was looking out over the city again, his profile lit by the moon, the glitter twinkling minutely across his skin every time he shifted to take a breath. “I don’t even think they like me. You’d think if B was trying to fill his black kid quota, he’d pick someone… I don’t know. Funnier. Cooler. Something.”

It was Stephanie’s turn to frown. She knew the Waynes weren’t the best at showing affection, but she hoped they were at least trying to reach out.

“Are they being mean to you?” she asked. “Because if they are, take it from me. Just give them a good, swift kick to the nuts. Apply as needed.”

That earned her a short laugh, one that made his teeth shine out in the dark and warmed the pit of her stomach. She forgot sometimes, hanging with all the Dark and Gloomies, how nice it felt to make another person laugh.

“They ignore me, mostly. B’s okay. Distant, but nice enough. Sometimes he helps me with homework if I need it. And T—I mean, uh, Red Robin, he’s okay, too. Kind of a prick if he’s stressed or tired, but otherwise a bit of a space cadet. We play video games, sometimes.”

Stephanie nodded, and that seemed to be all the encouragement Duke needed to continue down the list. “Hood, he’s not around much. We grew up kind of near each other, so you’d think that’d be something, but really, I stay out of his way and he stays out of mine. And Black Bat…”

Duke grimaced, then gave Steph a bit of a side-eye. “I know she’s your friend, and I respect that, but she’s kind of creepy. I mean, she’s nice and all, but I never know when she’s around. And when she is around, I can’t tell what she thinks of me. She does this staring thing…”

Duke shuddered, and Stephanie nodded sympathetically. “They’re a family of starers, for sure.”

“A’s a good guy,” Duke admitted. “I can’t always tell when he’s joking, but I guess that’s where B gets it from.” He paused, then snorted. “I never got that before. A, B.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Nightwing, though,” she prompted. “He’s nice to you, right?”

She couldn’t imagine Dick _not_ being nice. She’d picked up over the last few years that maybe he hadn’t been so great when Jason was Robin, but he’d definitely corrected that trait since. He still had a temper like nobody’s business, but he usually saved that for Bruce.

Duke conceded her point with a bobbling sort of nod. “Yeah, he’s an alright guy for a…” He tapped the spot over his breastbone where a police badge might rest. “He says hey to me, at least. Asks about my day when he comes by, that kind of stuff.”

“But he loves Robin and Robin’s a terror,” Stephanie guessed.

“Terror is right,” Duke moaned. He slumped onto his back across the concrete and pressed his hands to his face, letting his legs remain over the edge. “I feel like I’m living in that freaking _Clue_ game.”

He lifted his gloved hands into the air, streaking the air with yellow as he gesticulated. “Where will I die today? In the bathroom with the lead pipe? In the dining room with the knife? Who knows, but at least we know the murderer is the tiny stabby kid!”

“So, uh, the glitter?” Steph asked.

“Glitter bomb,” Duke groaned. “Rigged in my closet. POOF when I opened the door. Then they put more glitter in my shampoo and conditioner and replace my soap so I couldn’t even shower it off.”

“They?”

Duke nodded. “The Robins.”

“Red Robin and Robin together?” Stephanie echoed. She was quiet for a moment, then started to laugh.

“It’s not that funny.”

“Signal, you idiot.” Stephanie rubbed her knuckle against the corner of her eye and swiped away a tear. “They pranked you. They pranked you together. They like you.”

Duke stared at her. Once she could catch her breath, Stephanie popped to her feet and held out her hand to pull him up beside her.

“Where are we going?” he asked as she pulled him toward the fire escape.

“To plan. They want you to prank them back. It’s a prank war. And I’m going to help you win.”


	9. Tim or Cass + 🌈

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the emoji prompt meme on Tumblr.
> 
> Originally posted here: https://lurkinglurkerwholurks.tumblr.com/post/181183277937/tim-or-cass

The day derailed with a gag, a stupid little joke. It was Damian’s fault for being a brat. If he hadn’t taken Tim’s favorite sweatshirt— _without_  asking permission—Tim wouldn’t have had to chase him through the house. If Tim hadn’t been chasing him through the house, they wouldn’t have blown through the kitchen, where Cass was sitting on the counter island, eating a jello cup. They wouldn’t have raced around her little oasis, Damian scrambling, Tim roaring.

Tim, in a fit of pique and desperate inspiration, wouldn’t have screeched, “I’ll get you, my pretty! And your little dog, too!”

Damian wouldn’t have stopped dead, a deep scowl on his face, forcing Tim to skid to a halt as well so they didn’t end up in a pile on the floor. Even then, that might have been the end of it, Tim’s sweatshirt recovered, the peace settled, the scowl ignored, had Cass not been frowning as well.

“What?” Tim looked from one to the other and back, aware that somehow he’d stepped in it without knowing what or why or how.

“You _dare_  threaten Titus—” Damian hissed, his cheeks flaring with color as he stepped forward, fists clenched.

_No_ , Cass signed sharply. _You must be kind to animals. That is not kind_.

“What? No, no no.” Tim lifted his hands placatingly. He needed to defuse the situation before he got himself stabbed. Or worse. “It’s a quote. I didn’t mean—The Wicked Witch of the West? You know, Dorothy? Toto?”

He crooked his fingers menacingly and hunched his shoulders before cackling in a nearly perfect imitation, “ _I’ll get you, my pretty! And your little dog, too!”_

The recitation was met with blank stares.

“No? Oh my word. Have you two never seen The Wizard of Oz?”

The only change was a slight head tilt from Cass.

“Okay,” Tim decided, “we’re fixing this. Come on.”

WE paperwork would hold for another time. The casework down in the Cave could wait. There was a larger injustice to rectify. The day was officially derailed.

They crashed in the den, sprawled across the plush leather couch with bowls of popcorn and juice boxes and Titus curled up on the rug. (Damian insisted, as it was the dog’s safety at stake. Should Damian’s affront not be sated by the movie, Titus would be instructed to bite Tim. Tim did not agree to this, but the dog was allowed to stay.) It had been years since Tim had watched the entire film, and he found himself enjoying the fuzzy nostalgia. He also enjoyed the expressions and reactions of his siblings more than he had anticipated.

Damian, predictably, loathed Almira Gulch and cheered Dorothy’s decision to run away and save her dog. He also took (vocal) issue with the physics involved in the tornado scene. Cass watched the first technicolor view of Oz with wide, dazzled eyes and bit her lip as the Munchkins danced around Dorothy.

Both looked to Tim with a dawning understanding as the Wicked Witch appeared and threatened Dorothy, her cackling screech echoing Tim’s earlier mimicry. And that could have been it. Now believing that Titus was in no danger and with Tim’s honor restored, they could have turned off the movie and gone about their day. But they stayed.

Tim had forgotten how scary parts of the movie could be, and found himself sandwiched on either side by his siblings as the poppies lulled and the Wizard threatened, as the Lion cried and the monkeys harassed, as the Scarecrow screamed and the witch melted. Both children had, surely, seen far scarier things in their lives, all of them horrible and real, but perhaps that was the comfort of a good movie. All horrors must come to an end. The dog would be saved. The friends would be rewarded. The lost little girl would return home, where she would be loved and doted upon.

The movie ended. They started it again.

Cass had a bad habit of hyperfixating on new music, and Tim could already tell that the household would be subjected to every cover of “Over the Rainbow” ever created. He was okay with that, at least right now. She watched with stars in her eyes as Judy Garland perched on the fence and crooned about bluebirds and lullabies.

“If you were to run away,” he asked, his voice hushed and sleepy, “where would your over the rainbow be?”

It was a stupid question, and he half-expected Damian to laugh, to mock him. He was only partially disappointed.

“Tt.” Damian rolled his eyes even as he stretched on the couch, arching his back to look up at his brother so Tim could take the full weight of his disdain. “I am already here. When I thought of leaving the League, it was to come here. Why would I go now?”

He turned back to the television, the question clearly rhetorical. Cass nodded as well, her smile as warm and soft as her cheek against Tim’s side.

The popcorn was nothing but kernels. The juice boxes had been squeezed dry. Titus dozed on his back, paws in the air, oblivious to the world. They lay on the couch, heads resting on hips, arms thrown across shoulders, a tangled mass of warmth and contentment and one stolen sweatshirt.

There was no place like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next time they faced Jonathan Crane was an ~experience~. "If you only had a brain!" screamed Robin as he uppercut the man. "If you only had a brain," he repeated later, as Batman cuffed the Scarecrow for his return to Arkham. "A heart," Red Robin agreed. "A home," they said together. "The noive," Black Bat finished solemnly in an exquisitely exaggerated accent.


	10. Robin!Jason + 🎭

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the emoji prompt meme.
> 
> Originally posted here: https://lurkinglurkerwholurks.tumblr.com/post/181261150332/robin-era-jason

It was 7:00 and Jason was nowhere to be found. Normally, that wouldn’t be a concern. The Manor was large, its grounds sprawling, its nooks numerous. A growing boy needed to have time to himself. But it was Sunday night. It was 7:00. The VHS of _Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back_  was paused at the top of the iconic scroll, a bowl of buttery popcorn sat on the couch, and Bruce was next to it. Alone.

At 7:10, Bruce went looking for his missing son. At 7:13, he heard a distant thudding and abandoned his current path to reroute toward one of the guest rooms. At 7:14, he found Jason standing next to a sheet-shrouded wardrobe, methodically hitting his forehead against its side.

“Something wrong?”

Jason whirled, one hand clutching a sheath of papers. “Bruce. You scared me.”

Bruce waited, one eyebrow raised.

“I…” Jason tried to tuck the papers behind his back, then reconsidered. his shoulders slumped as he rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t want to tell you yet.”

“Tell me what?”

“There’s a play at school. I, uh, I was thinking about maybe trying out?” Jason didn’t frame many of his statements as questions. Though Bruce was aware the affectation was typical for young teenagers, Jason had always been good about hiding his uncertainties, maybe too good.

“That sounds like a good idea.” If Bruce wasn’t careful, he was going to start ending his own sentences with an upswing. Participating in a production _did_  sound like a good idea, so he wasn’t sure why Jason was hesitating. Or why he didn’t want to tell Bruce. Dick would have told Bruce every detail from the second the announcement went out at school, every emotion he’d felt from that moment onward, every piece of the production that interested him, every part he wanted to play.

Unpracticed as he was at parenting, even after so many years with Dick, Bruce knew it was unwise to compare children. They were individuals, unique, with their own strengths and weaknesses, foibles and quirks. Besides, some days it hurt too much.

Bruce gave himself a mental shake. Right here, right now, Dick was not his concern. Jason was. And while he didn’t know the boy nearly as well as he (thought he) knew Dick, the incongruities in Jason’s behavior were apparent and intriguing.

Bruce sat on the edge of the guest bed, careful to keep his arms uncrossed and his fingers relaxed as he rested his hands on his knees. They’d come a long way, he and Jason, and he knew Jason no longer felt threatened by Bruce’s size or presence, but Bruce also knew an open body posture went a long way with such a guarded kid.

“Why didn’t you want to tell me?” Bruce asked.

“I wasn’t going to never tell you,” Jason assured him, even as a light flush crept up the back of his neck. “I wanted to see if I got a part first. There’s nothing to tell if I’m, like, Tree #3 or something stupid. And I dunno. Maybe I’ll change my mind. Maybe I won’t try out. It’s just a dumb play, and we’re busy, and—”

“Jason.” Though softly spoken, hearing his name was enough to turn off the spigot of Jason’s ramblings. Bruce patted the spot next to him and waited for Jason to sit before saying, “If you want to do this, we’ll make time in your schedule. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jason mumbled. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ll be awful and I won’t get a part and it won’t matter.”

That Bruce doubted, but he let that argument rest for the moment. “What’s the play?”

The flush on Jason’s neck intensified, but through his embarrassment, he managed to give Bruce a cheeky grin. “Robin Hood.”

Of course. Bruce nodded at the paper in Jason’s hand. “And you’re trying out for?”

“Bru-uce.”

Robin. Of course. Bruce’s lips twitched with the urge to smile. Instead he asked, “What’s the problem?”

“It doesn’t feel right.” Jason thrust the sheath of papers at Bruce. “I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s a ton of lines to memorize, I don’t know how to shoot a bow and arrow or fence or dance. I don’t _feel_  like Robin Hood. I just feel stupid. And you know theater kids, Bruce. Some of them get _really_  into it. They’re gonna cream me. Or laugh at me.”

And the latter would be far worse for someone like Jason.

Bruce took the crumpled packet and began to flip through the scenes. For a school play, the writing was decent—not too dumbed down, but also not too highbrow. More Errol Flynn than Russell Crowe, but with a dash of Cary Elwes thrown in, which was wise, considering the audience. In Bruce’s (admittedly biased) opinion, Jason would be perfect for the lead role. The athleticism, the charm, the courage, the heart, it was all Jay.

“It looks like a good part,” Bruce said.

“Could you help me?” Jason asked. Even now, after all they’d been through out in Gotham’s wild nights, it was rare to hear those words from his secondborn, and Bruce felt a warmth unspool behind his ribcage.

He did smile then, as he handed the script back to Jason. “No. I have a better idea.”

Bruce rose and headed for the door, a confused Jason trailing in his wake.

“Bruce? What are we doing?” Jason asked.

“What a wise man must do when faced with a daunting task. We’re going to an expert.” Bruce looked over his shoulder at his son as they strode out into the hall. “Come on. I think Alfred’s in the kitchen. And Jay?”

“Yeah, B?”

“Next time, tell me anyways. I’d come even if you were Tree #3.”

"Aw geez, old man."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writer's block is kicking my butt three ways to Sunday. I don't know how I finished this. With that non-ending, _is_ it finished? I know nothing. I am broken.


	11. Tim + 🎓

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the emoji prompt meme on Tumblr.
> 
> Originally posted here: https://lurkinglurkerwholurks.tumblr.com/post/181295732987/tim

“Do you hate me for not graduating?”

Jason’s attention was focused on the warehouse across the street, so it was several seconds before his brain processed 1) that Tim was speaking, 2) that Tim was speaking to him, and 3) what Tim had just asked. His head rotated with deliberate slowness to buy himself some time. Red Robin, for his part, kept his gaze firmly on their target.

Jason watched with avid interest as a range of emotions flashed across Tim’s face, unaffected by the domino—discomfort, embarrassment, and unease tugged at the muscles in his cheeks and the corners of his eyes. He was getting easier to read. Jason didn’t know if that was because Tim felt more at ease with him than he had after their rocky beginning or if they were simply closer.

Then again, Tim had always been easier to read, at least compared to the others. He was quiet, unhealthily so at times, and more withdrawn than anyone except for Cass, but Tim also often lacked the emotional mask that the others wore as second nature. Sometimes, when Jason felt like being maudlin about someone other than himself, he wondered if Tim’s lack of shielding came from his childhood neglect. After all, if no one paid attention to you, what use was there in hiding?

Whatever the case, conversations with Tim, ironically, were usually less of a landmine-filled plot. Except for now, when Jason had no idea what the kid was talking about or why.

“Why,” Jason asked with a measured pace equal to the turn of his head, “of all the reasons to choose from, would you pick that one?”

Jason would have bet Bruce’s money that Tim had been blushing from the start, but now the flush rising in his cheeks was visible even in the low light.

“T—Red?” he prodded.

“You know. Because I’m a spoiled rich kid who didn’t even graduate high school, much less take the offered full ride to college, and you...”

“... are the smart and plucky street trash who has to fight for everything he’s got?” Jason finished drily. Tim’s blush dialed up considerably, to the point that Jason glanced back down at the warehouse they were staking out to make sure the glow wasn’t visible from the street.

“Yeah, I’m mean _no_ , of course not, but—”

Jason’s eyes narrowed behind his helmet, his suspicions suddenly coalescing into clarity. “Who told you?”

“Told...?” Tim began to stammer, but Jason cut him off with a glare. The glare still worked surprisingly well under the helmet. He was pretty sure it was a combination of the eyepieces’ natural squint and the head tilt he often gave with it. Whatever the case, it was equally effective on goons and guilty little brothers.

Tim's shoulders slumped. “Nightwing.”

“Rat fink,” Jason muttered. “I managed almost two semesters without anyone finding out, but _the dick_ finds out and suddenly the whole world knows.”

“I think it’s cool,” Tim offered hesitantly. “You _should_ go back. Get a degree. B always said you’re the smartest of all of us, anyways.”

Behind his mask, Jason blinked.

Tim was still talking. “But I wondered, you know? If you hated me for giving up something you wanted like it was nothing to me.” He added in a low voice, almost too low for Jason to hear, “It feels like I do that a lot, with you.”

He was serious. Tim was actually concerned about how Jason felt about his dropping out of school. Jason felt a little like Tim had stabbed a taser into his brain with that last revelation, but he did his best to reset and focus on the issue at hand.

“Look,” Jason said, “you did that back when I still used your head for target practice, right? So yeah, maybe I was pissed when I first heard about it. Maybe I figured B had screwed up, replacing me with some dumb brat who couldn’t think his way out of a soggy paper bag. But I know that’s not how it is.” 

School had been a paradise for Jason, even with the bullying and sly digs from some of the other kids. He’d loved learning, still did. Even as out of his mind as he’d been his first year or two back in Gotham, he’d been horrified and enraged when he’d heard Bruce had let his latest protege drop out of high school. Sure, Tim had easily completed his GED requirements and gone on to do great things at WE, but he was right. At the time, Jason had hated him, for all he represented and all he seemed to take for granted.

“School’s my thing,” Jason said, nudging Tim’s shoulder with his own. “I’m a nerd. I’m cool with that. It doesn't have to be everyone’s thing.” He snorted. “Sure wasn’t D’s.”

Tim chuckled in agreement, likely having heard stories of Dick’s disastrous attempt at college, but then returned Jason’s shoulder nudge. “So, we’re good?”

“Yeah,” Jason agreed, “we’re good. But if you tell _anyone_ about my classes, I’ll shoot you.”

“It’s not like we sit around and _discuss_  you, you prick.”

“Red.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ll shoot me and throw me in the river, I know."

 


	12. Dick + 💅

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From the emoji prompt meme. Originally posted here: https://lurkinglurkerwholurks.tumblr.com/post/181620953007/dick

Alfred was not amused. Alfred was often not amused, but at the moment, he was the particular Not Amused that made his lips disappear and his eye glint dangerously.

There wasn’t a super villain or rogue in Gotham that scared Dick more than Unamused No Lips Alfred, even as a grown man. Which was how he—an independent, fully autonomous adult in his late twenties—found himself meekly returning to his childhood bed under orders from the family butler.

The responsible team leader lurking in Dick’s brain pointed out that Alfred’s call was the right one. If Dick had caught one of his siblings hobbling around after a nasty encounter with Killer Croc, he would have shamed them back to bed, too. The remaining, much larger part of Dick’s brain was too busy screaming at the idea of being confined to bedrest to listen.

He should rest. He spent so much of his days (and nights, to be honest) wishing for a nap that it was criminal to waste the opportunity. But naps were only good when they were stolen, snuck in amongst responsibilities and duties, and were no fun at all when required. Instead, Dick clicked through the TV channels (boring), tried to read (too hard with a broken arm), flipped through his apps (bo-oring), and eventually settled on whining plaintively to anyone who walked by.

There was a suspicious lack of hall traffic that afternoon.

Finally, a slight figure bundled in multiple layers floated by his door.

“Cass!” Dick called. “Cassiiiiiiiiiiiiie.”

The doorway remained empty for a moment, then the figure returned. Cass tucked her hair behind one ear and eyed him warily.

“Cass, you have to help me. I’m so bored.”

_You’ll die if you get up,_ Cass reminded him, hands flashing quickly.

“I won’t,” Dick argued. “I’ve had worse. It’s just a broken arm, some busted ribs, and a few puncture wounds. It’s not that bad, Cass, don’t exaggerate.”

_No, Alfred. He will kill you._ came the immediate reply.

Dick grimaced. “I won’t get out of bed, but you have to help me. Please, Cass, I’m so bored, and you’re my favorite sister.”

_I’m your only sister,_ Cass pointed out. She shifted her feet, more an indication to him that she was ready to keep moving than any physical need on her part—Cass could stand motionless for hours, something he’d witnessed himself several times. _I don’t know anything to do to keep you busy._

That was true. It wasn’t like she would want to read to him, and he was so sick of watching television, even with someone else. Dick was stumped, until his eyes alighted on her hands.

“Would you paint my nails?”

Cass looked down at her hands with a frown. She had black nails with delicate white polka dots today. Dick didn’t know much about nail painting, but he’d noticed different patterns and colors before. It wasn’t like he needed anything fancy, but at least it was a way to kill time and earn some company.

Honestly, he’d expected Cass to jump at the opportunity. They weren’t super-close, but she seemed to enjoy any one-on-one time she could get with family. Instead, she gave him a strange, almost quizzical look. And then she left.

Dick let his head thump back against his pillow with a groan, only to lift it again a few minutes later when soft, sock-padded footsteps scuffled across the threshold.

Tim gave him a bashful little wave. “Cass said you were going stir-crazy.”

Behind him, Cass gave Dick a flat look.

“I can’t stay in this bed anymore. But if I leave, Alfred will murder me,” Dick moaned.

“Yeah, he was looking pretty lipless earlier.” Tim ran his fingers through his tangled hair and glanced back at Cass before focusing on Dick. “She said you wanted your nails painted?”

Dick nodded, then tipped his head in confusion as Tim held up a small pouch.

A mottled pink slowly crawled up Tim’s neck. “I do her nails when Steph doesn’t have time. Cass, uh, tends to make a mess.”

Tim quickly added, “Not that that’s a bad thing. You just scrape off the excess after, no big deal. But she didn’t want to make a mess on you, I guess, so she asked me to stop by.”

Now that Dick thought about it, he had noticed Tim sporting similar polish before. His tended to lack patterns and detail, sticking instead to a single, glossy coat, so Dick hadn’t paid as much attention. Nail polish wasn’t an aesthetic Dick particularly understood, though he’d watched Babs do her own nails a time or two.

Tim was still watching him cautiously, so Dick made sure the smile that filled his face was warm and bright. “If you don’t mind, that’d be great.”

The next time Alfred took a circuit past Master Dick’s room, he stopped in the doorway to watch his three charges. Tim was explaining coats and shades, his young face relaxed and content to have his older brother’s full attention. Cass was crouched next to him, her nose scrunched with concentration as she attempted to neatly paint his toes a robin’s breast red. And on his pillows, Dick lay, the tension at last drained from his muscles as he enjoyed the company of his two younger siblings. Over Tim’s head, he spotted Alfred and gave a wink. Alfred merely raised a brow and departed, but Dick was pleased to note that his lips had returned and were quirking upward.


End file.
